


through a glass darkly

by disinclinant (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (can't believe that's not a tag), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Canon Era, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Death Fix, Ensemble Cast, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Horcruxes, Magical Artifacts, Magical Realism, Mystery, POV Sirius Black, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Presumed Dead, Second War with Voldemort, Self-Indulgent, Sirius Black Lives, Soul Magic, Universe Alteration, War, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-01-23 06:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18544000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/disinclinant
Summary: Sirius Black falls through the Veil—and back into the world.He is not dead, but nor is he alive, neither ghost nor simply memory and barely a poltergeist. The second war with Voldemort has officially begun, and Harry Potter has finally learned the full extent of the Prophecy. Sirius is not about to let his godson suffer needlessly, not if he can help it. But how much can he do, invisible as he is?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this idea walloped me over the head out of absolutely nowhere. as a result, updates will be sporadic. encouragement is v welcome. enjoy!
> 
> title from the poem by George S. Patton, Jr.  
> tags and rating liable to change as the fic progresses

Sirius Black falls through the Veil—and back into the world.

Except the world’s gone all strange. Grey like those muggle movies Remus loved, and cold, although not like Azkaban, and…ghostly. He’s the only solid, colourful creature, even though all about him are the Order fighting the Death Eaters, the students Harry brought along and—

 _Harry!_  Sirius thinks, desperately, and whirls around.    

Harry is screaming wildly, Harry is staring at the Veil in horror, Harry is being held back by a Moony with a terrible look on his face, half desolation, half dogged determination, a look Sirius last saw after the McKinnons were murdered and James and Lily said they were going into hiding and Sirius had said terrible things because there’d been a spy and he’d been afraid, and he always said the worst things when he was afraid or angry or both.

For just a moment, Sirius doesn’t understand. And then he does, when a jet of colourless light bursts through his chest from the end of someone’s wand and it doesn’t affect him at all. As if he, and not the world, has gone ghostly.    

 _No_ , he thinks, hollowly. He still has his wand. He lifts it, says, “Lumos," and nothing happens.    

Worse, for the first time, he notices something lacking that he’d never before noticed was even there, because it had always been there, until now. There is no warmth in himself, or in his wand, no surety that comes from casting a spell and having the magic in him respond.   

He remembers turning eleven and getting his first real wand, though he’d been casting with a practice wand since he’d been old enough to speak real words. He remembers going through three wands before Ollivander had handed him his, and it had filled him with…rightness in the centre of himself that he’d only found again when he and Prongs and Moony and that bastard Wormtail had become friends, after a horrible six months as the first and only Black in Gryffindor.    

 _No_ , thinks Sirius, looking around. Dumbledore appears, and then the Dark Lord, and Harry, Harry, his Harry, his godson…    

 _It’s not fair_ , thinks Sirius, a terrible gaping chasm in his chest only so recently pasted over cracking open.  _I just got out._ And for the second time in his life, he’s made to watch the world move on without him. . .

.

.

.

The worst part, he thinks, is he can’t touch anyone. He is very much a ghost, despite being both invisible and fully colourful and corporeal, if only to himself. So, a ghost. He can walk through anything, and everything can go through him, although he can control it somehow through intent, it seems. If he wants to climb a staircase, he can. If he wants to cross a road, he can. If he wants to sit in a car, he can.    

But he can’t touch people. And they can’t touch him. And for the first two weeks, that’s the worst part. He follows Harry, although a part of him wants to go to Moony, who is alone the way he’s too often been in his life. He follows Harry because he’d promised James and Lily that he’d look after their kid, and the last time he broke that promise and did what  _he_  wanted he ended up in Azkaban for twelve years and Harry ended up with Lily’s awful fucking sister.    

He follows Harry and watches helpless as his godson, this child who’s gone through too much to be just a kid anymore loses it in the Headmaster’s office, and all Albus does is watch sadly, when he should be—should be—    

“You do care,” Albus says, as Harry breaks everything he can get his hands on. “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”    

 _Yes_ , thinks Sirius, who has been bleeding to death with the pain of it for fourteen years now. And also,  _fuck you, Albus, give him a hug or something._

Because Sirius can’t, can he? He can just stand there and watch as Harry cries and cries and cries. He can just follow along as Harry goes very quiet and ghostly himself, and then watch with a horrible lump in his throat when Harry comes alive with hope at the sight of the ghosts only to go numb again when Nick says he doesn’t think Sirius would choose to linger after death.    

Sirius doesn’t know if that’s right. It’s not like he was given the choice. And faced with Harry’s grief, he’s not sure he _wouldn’t_ choose to linger, even if the idea of maybe seeing James again, of—but it doesn’t matter. He’s not gone. Not really. He’s  _here_. 

So Sirius stays where he is, following Harry onto the train, into the car with his horrid relatives, and into the tedious little house Tuney Evans seems so inordinately proud of when Sirius thinks its the most boring thing he’s ever seen in his life, and he had Binns as a teacher for seven years.   

Harry wanders in and wanders up the stairs and wanders into his cramped little bedroom full of broken things and wanders onto the edge of the bed, where he sits. Sirius sits next to him. They don’t move again for hours, until Hedwig hoots softly, apologetically, and Harry stirs himself to release her from her cage and then fall into bed and—apparently—back to sleep. 

Sirius looks at him, reaches out, traces the curve of Harry’s cheek, the line of his glasses that he hadn’t bothered to take off.    

“I’m so sorry,” he says.   

Hedwig sidles out of her cage and flies soundlessly over to the headboard of Harry’s bed. She hoots again and Sirius looks up to find her staring straight at him. His heart gives a painful jolt against his ribs. Can she—can she really see him? He waves his hand in front of her face and she darts her head forward to nip at him, startling him into yanking his hand back. She can see him. She can  _see_  him.    

 _Can he—_    

He reaches out a long, trembling finger to stroke the side of her wing, and his hand sinks through her. She ruffles all her feathers and flies off, shooting him an indignant look before winging out the open window, and Sirius stares after her, torn between treacherous hope and despair. 

It’s a familiar feeling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on tumblr (under the same username) about any ideas you might have or your thoughts on this fic!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im SO EXCITED for this fic, i have so many ideaaaaas, enjoy! i'm gonna try to avoid retelling HBP, some things will be the same but some will definitely change. so bear with me as we move into the story properly!

Sirius misses colours. He never knew there could be so many shades of grey and white and black before he fell through the Veil. One month into the summer holidays, Sirius starts seeing colours that aren’t there. It’s because he knows, mostly, what everything _should_ look like, so his brain seems to be conjuring colour in blotches, like after you stare into light too long. He’s not too alarmed. The years in Azkaban resulted in stranger sights-that-weren’t and sounds-that-weren’t and tastes-that-weren’t, so he’s not that fussed.

The colour appearances would be nice if they weren’t a sign he was going mad( _der_ ). As it is, because he’s sure the incident with Hedwig means there’s _some_ hope of not being trapped in this world forever, Sirius reminds himself to keep a leash on his wandering mind. Easier said than done, of course, when he can’t sleep. 

It’s weird. He just doesn’t get tired. He closes his eyes and tries one night, but nothing happens, except that he sinks through the floors because he’s stopped trying to keep himself where he is, was actively trying to fall into sleep.

But there’s Harry to focus on, which helps in one way, much as it infuriates him in every other way.

He knew the Dursleys were awful, with the way Lily had gone tight-lipped about her sister and brother-in-law, the way James had talked about them, derision in his tone that had usually been reserved for the likes of Snape. He knew, too, from the way Harry clearly hated them, even if he hadn’t known the particulars. But he sees the locks on Harry’s door, he sees the Merlin-be-damned  _cat-flap_ , he sees the way Harry gets thinner and thinner as time goes, and it’s not because he barely eats, but because the Dursleys barely _feed_ him. He sees the way the Dursleys talk or don’t talk to their nephew, the way the Uncle looks at Harry like he’d like to bury him to be rid of him (and Sirius is familiar with that look, with the mother he had), the way the cousin flinches away from Harry like Harry’s liable to explode on him. Sirius wouldn’t blame Harry in the least, and he remembers something about a blown up Aunt that Ron Weasley had laughed about once. 

But Harry doesn’t explode. He seems to implode instead, gone quiet and dead behind the eyes, worse than after Diggory and the Triwizard fiasco and the smear campaign against him that followed, and it makes Sirius want to howl like the dog he is. Harry doesn’t talk to his ‘family', just grunts when they deign to direct a question or order at him, doesn’t even murmur to Hedwig, who’s quite verbal for an owl. Harry’s not a precisely talkative bloke, but Sirius knew him around his friends, around himself, the Order members, and he wasn’t—this. He wasn’t _silent._ Sirius doesn’t talk to him, though he could—it's worse to be so clearly unheard than it is to bear Harry’s silence with him.

Sirius is sorry, so deeply, uselessly sorry to have done this to Harry, but worse than Harry’s silence are the nightmares. Sirius is no stranger to nightmares, but Harry’s are awful to witness, because he can’t do anything about them. He just has to watch Harry twitch and shake and moan in his sleep, jerk himself awake gasping and retching, having sweated through his overlarge shirts and shakily pet Hedwig’s feathers until he’s calmed down, or wipe tears from his face. 

Sometimes Harry doesn’t sleep, just lies in bed or wanders the neighbourhood or stare out his window at the sky with painful, desperate yearning etched into every miserable line on his face. Harry gets letters, which makes it a change from last year, he knows, and they will occasionally draw a fleeting smile or huff of a laugh from Harry. He doesn’t read them, though he could. He can give Harry that much privacy.

Harry gets the Prophet too, which he flips through slowly. Sirius reads that alongside him, catching bits and pieces. The wizarding world is falling apart, Fudge has stepped down, Rufus Scrimgeour has taken his place as Minister of Magic. Attacks on Muggles and wizards and witches alike abound. The Dementors are roaming, difficult to keep in check when the Patronus is so difficult to master and there’s so much misery to feed on. The sale of charms and protective runes have skyrocketed. Mundungus must be making gold by the handfuls. 

Early in July, two different things happen which result in a shift for Harry, and therefore for Sirius. The first is that  _Prophet_ reports that Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones have been murdered. Sirius reads this with a pang. They weren’t his friends, but Sirius has known them for years, duelled beside them in the first war, laughed with them in his mother’s house over a glass of Ogden’s, listened to them during missions…They're a loss for the Order, but they're a personal loss too, a connection to the past (before Lily and James’ death, before Azkaban) that's severed so soon after it was rebuilt. 

Harry reads the announcement with his mouth all twisted up, and then he puts the paper away, pushes a hand through his hair in a move that is so reminiscent of James that it makes his breath catch in his chest, and stares straight ahead of him with something like his old spark in his eyes.

“Ok,” he says, startling Sirius. It’s the first word he’s said since…since Hogwarts, maybe. “Ok,” says Harry again, “Enough’s enough.”

Sirius doesn’t know if he means with the _Prophet,_ or the murders, or the war, or what. But Harry seems to come back to himself after that, murmurs at Hedwig who goes owl-quiet like she’d just been compensating for his silence all this time, mutters to himself as he does chores (and insults under his breath at his Aunt and Uncle which make Sirius cackle), flips through his school books and practices incantations and spells and wand movements wandlessly ( _clever boy,_ thinks Sirius proudly), writes to his friends. He also gets up to other, normal teen activities, which means Sirius starts to spend the night wandering Little Whinging after accidentally walking in on Harry and—well, best not to say, really. 

The wandering makes him wonder if he could just—keep going. Travel the world. Walk through seas, or ride those aeroplanes he’s always wanted to ride. What are his limits? Could  he safely get lost in deserts and jungles? The thought makes him feel shivery with a combination of panic and—exhilaration, maybe. The world is wide open to him, but empty too. Because he’s alone, on this side of the Veil. Or he thinks he is; he doesn’t know really. He doesn’t know if anyone else has gone through the Veil—when he thinks back, he thinks he remembers voices from it. And it was in the heart of the Ministry too. The Hogwarts ghosts certainly couldn’t see him. Strange, that. That Hedwig could, but not the ghosts. Sirius is essentially a ghost himself, isn’t he? One would think, with their deadness, they would be able to see him. It gives Sirius hope that he’s not _actually_ dead. That, or Hedwig is just special.

He tests this by bothering birds in the park, dogs belonging to the neighbours, and street cats. It takes some effort, it isn’t like it was with Hedwig, and maybe that’s because she’s magical. But after some concentrated _notice me notice me notice me,_ like the reverse of Occlumency, they respond to him, scatter away in a panic of wings or bark at him or, with the cats, stare at him narrowly and then hiss and saunter away, tails lashing. So that’s a relief.

The second thing that happens is that Harry receives a letter from Dumbledore that makes him _beam_ , positively transforming him into a normal sixteen year old boy without the weight of the world and a prophecy on his shoulders. Dumbledore is coming to deliver him personally to the Weasleys in less than two weeks time. 

“I’m happy for you,” Sirius says. His voice comes out croaky to his own ears. Harry doesn’t respond of course, but he keeps smiling as he hastily composes a few notes to the Weasleys, and a response to Dumbledore. Sirius watches him, aching to ruffle Harry’s hair but unwilling to face the fact he can’t touch him, settles for sitting beside him on his bed. He's excited to return to the Wizarding World for more selfish reasons too. He has experiments to conduct. 

Merlin, he misses Moony. Moony was always the best at these sorts of things...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating has gone up to T, in preparation for stuff lol. canon-typical tho, and i will warn for anything in advance!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i keep saying this but i am SO EXCITED for my plans for this fic. thank you to my reviewers, i will reply asap, but im so chuffed to be hearing from you! i know the chapters are a bit short, and usually i dont write such short chapters, but im also working full time so its a bit difficult. hopefully they're worth the read though! <3
> 
> warning for sirius' attitude towards kreacher

Watching the Dursleys react to Albus Dumbledore in their cutout of a house is hilarious, as was watching Harry hastily toss things in his trunk—Harry hadn’t believed Dumbledore, or he’d had a fit of teenage procrastination hit him, but either way, he was hardly ready, eager as he was, to leave Privet Drive. Slightly less funny is hearing about his ‘death’ and his will, with the Greater Dursley (as opposed to his son, Not So Junior Dursley) interjecting oafishly into the conversation.

Harry grants the Order Grimmauld Place, which Sirius isn't surprised by, nor does he begrudge him the choice. He hates the place, and short of razing it with Fiendfyre, letting it be the headquarters for all those who oppose his family’s ideals is a sweet revenge. He just wishes the bequeathment didn’t leave Harry looking so haunted.

Dumbledore’s theory about the ownership of the blasted place requiring blood purity isn’t quite right, even if it does sound precisely like something his grandparents (let alone dear old Mum) might have tried to do. The ironic truth of it is that the purebloods of the British wizarding world are not as pure as they would have the world know—if they _were_ , they’d be rather more inbred than they are, and have many more squibs. As it is, a ‘pure blood restricting' enchantment would risk expelling everyone in House Black. Rather than face such a risk or their own prejudices, no such enchantment was laid on Grimmauld Place. 

It’s unbelievably infuriating to be unable to say any of this, and instead Sirius has to watch Dumbledore suggest that dearest Bella might inherit the place, and watch Harry leap to his feet with fury turning his face white. It turns out Sirius’ input isn’t necessary. Dumbledore suggests a test, ignoring the angry mutterings of the Dursleys, and flicks his wand. With a small bang, Kreacher appears.

For a brief moment, Kreacher’s caterwauling is mingled with the Dursleys’ umbrage, and Sirius longs— _longs_ —for magic, longs to _punish_ the Dursleys and Kreacher especially. Kreacher lured Harry to the Department of Mysteries. Kreacher is the reason the battle happened the way it did, the reason Harry’s friends ( _children_ ) were involved, the reason Sirius is trapped, once more, in a magical prison. He takes out his useless wand, furious in that cold way that fury always hits him, chilling him all down to the centre of himself, hardly paying any attention to what Dumbledore is saying.

Until Harry yells, “Kreacher, shut up!”

It looks for a moment as though Kreacher is going to choke. He grabs his throat, his mouth still working furiously, his eyes bulging*— _and they fix on Sirius._ After a few seconds of frantic gulping*, Kreacher snaps his mouth shut and directs a glare of unbridled loathing in the general vicinity of Sirius’ feet. Sirius would respond in kind, except he’s too stunned. Kreacher _saw_ him.

_Kreacher can see him._

“Kreacher?” Sirius breathes.

“Well, that simplifies matters,” says Dumbledore cheerfully, nearly at the same time. “It seems that Sirius knew what he was doing. You are the rightful owner of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and of Kreacher.”*

“ _Kreacher_.” Sirius pushes forward, stepping through Dumbledore as he does, though usually he avoids walking through people—but he doesn’t care about that now, just crashes to his knees across from his elf, who refuses to look at him. “Blast you, Kreacher, look at me. I know you can see me.”

Kreacher’s long, batlike ears twitch.

“You can _hear_ me, oh Merlin, _look at me_.”

Kreacher lifts his gaze to glare mutinously at Sirius before glancing at Harry. Something malicious glimmers in his expression—and then he turns away from Sirius.

Sirius has never so longed to commit murder in his life—bar, of course, the Rat. He yells himself hoarse, he tries to grab Kreacher and shake him (fails), he pleads and begs—and Kreacher refuses to acknowledge him.

Sirius feels a little as though the world is caving in on him before he pulls himself together just as Harry dismisses his new house-elf for Hogwarts and darts upstairs to pack. So Kreacher won’t acknowledge him. Kreacher won’t help. Kreacher won’t tell anyone—not unless he’s given an order to by Harry, and Harry doesn’t know to give the order. Kreacher’s a stubborn creature in his own way, and he can ignore Sirius better than Sirius can keep hounding him, especially since he doesn't have to obey Sirius. 

He can practically hear Moony mildly telling him that this is what comes of abusing his house elf, and Sirius mentally tells Remus to shut up.

It’s not the end of the world. Kreacher’s helped him, purely through accident and luck. His house-elf can see him, just like the animals can, just like Hedwig. And that’s either because Kreacher’s magical, or because he’s Sirius’ house elf—even if Harry _is_ his new Master now. 

The bonds between a House Elf and their family are very strong, very old magic.

.

.

.

Harry and Dumbledore leave number four Privet Drive having extracted the Dursleys' promise not to turn out their nephew until after he’s turned seventeen, and Sirius follows them out onto the lawn, half in a daze, half impatient to be gone already. 

Which is when he encounters a problem and something very strange all at once.

Dumbledore steps into a gap between a house and a very tall hedge, tells Harry to grip his arm—and disapparates. It happens in the usual way—a twist of a step, a bang. But the air where Dumbledore and Harry had stood _rents_. Like a tear in heavy curtains, light shines through, the view immediately around and behind the gash of light going hazy and twisty like a mirage. Sirius stares, and between one blink and the next, the light vanishes, the tear closes, and the air goes back to being normal. 

Sirius sucks in a breath. Is that— _was_ that—visible apparition?

He doesn’t quite have the time to ponder it—Harry is Morgana only knows where, and Sirius has no choice but to head to the Burrow, where hopefully his godson and Dumbledore will be. He’d spent an hour reading and re-reading Dumbledore’s letter to Harry, held open as it had been in Harry’s hand that evening, and he didn’t know what task Dumbledore had that he needed Harry for, but—well. 

There was nothing to be done about it. 

Sirius runs his hand through his hair and tugs on a few locks forlornly. He’s going to have to hitch a ride to Ottery St. Catchpole. Several rides, probably. 

.

.

.

It takes Sirius all of that night to get to the Burrow. He ends up walking through a car and riding it and two others to the tube. From there, after getting both lost and very confused, he finally finds his way to the right general area, and takes one bus (the last night service bus), and one ride from a Muggle who probably shouldn’t have been driving given how much he reeked of alcohol, and walked for absolute ages before he crested a hill and saw the village laid out below. The only thing he was grateful for was that his feet didn’t hurt.

Well, he was also quite grateful for the many winding, meandering journeys he and James used to take to get to the Burrow during the first war—it’d been used as a temporary meeting place for the Order a handful of times back then, what with the unbelievable wards Gideon and Fabian had placed on it, and he still remembered the routes to it. Funny, how life turned out. Back then he’d turn into Padfoot and saunter along with James when his human feet got tired—paws were much better for such long walks.

Sirius misses his animagus form. And James, but missing James is ever present. 

Shaking his head of memories, he begins the shorter walk to the Burrow and sees it limned in all its hodgepodge glory in the glimmer of the new sun peeking over the horizon. The Burrow is a lovely place. Not exactly Sirius’ taste, but he can’t help but love the chaos and homegrown, warm, welcoming charm of it—so utterly what his parents and all that puffed up, supremacist lot would have hated and could never in a million years conjure up for themselves even if they’d wanted to. 

He walks through the front door and into a silent house. Well, it stands to reason. Arthur has some time until his job at the Ministry starts, and Molly is an early riser but not _that_ early. He floats through the house, feeling more like a ghost than ever, wanders up and debates whether to enter the bedrooms to find where Harry’s staying. It seems…wrong to walk in on Arthur’s sleeping children then it does to walk in on Harry—Harry’s Sirius’ godson, he has the right, amorphous as he is. This though, feels like crossing a line.

The problem is solved for him by the fact that one of the bedrooms (right under the attic) has its door cracked open. He pokes his head through for a quick look, and is relieved to spot Harry’s wild hair sticking out from under the covers. A moment later, what must be Ron gives a rattling snore and rolls over on his back. There’s a low moaning in the attic—sounds like a ghoul.

Relieved that all is right, Sirius heads to the living room and settles in to watch the grey sunrise and the way the garden gnomes scurry through the fields, and to really think through the plan percolating in the back of his head. He needs Moony, perhaps even Hermione Granger, who is brilliant, and McGonagall, if he can get their attention. Probably also Dumbledore, though Sirius is leery of that for justifiable reasons, no matter how much the Moony in his head disapproves.

But firstly, Sirius needs Hogwarts. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * = lines lifted from HBP with minor tweaks.  
> headcanon that Gideon and Fabian were cursebreakers and inspired Bill :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things finally get interesting. some lines lifted directly or with adjustments from the books and marked with *

 

Sirius learns, that morning, that Harry’s outing with Dumbledore had included convincing Horace Slughorn to come back to Hogwarts. Ron, Harry, and Hermione think he’ll be covering the Dark Arts position, but Sirius remembers old Slug as his Potions professor. Still, things might have changed since his days at Hogwarts…

Fleur, when she bursts into the room and sends Ron all dreamy-eyed is—well, bloody gorgeous, but she also looks strange to Sirius. Sirius squints at her—or rather the haze of her form. The harder he looks, the more the subtle suggestion of feathers seems to shift about under her skin, nose turning distinctly beaky between one blink and the next before it resolves into a regular if exceptionally straight, blemish-free nose. It's unsettling but explains her effect on poor Ron—she’s a Veela, or partly Veela, at any rate. He finds it vaguely amusing that Harry seems unaffected by her glamour—but from all reports, Harry isn’t easily affected by mind altering charms, curses or, it seems, airs. 

He’s drawn out of his study of his godson when they mention Tonks. Unease prickles at him. He hates hearing his death talked about, hates having to see what it does to Harry every time, hates that…well, that they discuss him like he isn’t there.

Because he isn’t, not to them.

Still, this news about Tonks grieving him surprises him, a little. Ron is right, they didn’t know each other very well, only from whatever time she spent in the meetings at Grimmauld Place, and that was rarely, as she was an Auror. But that she might blame herself for him, so much so that she can't morph…

Sirius sinks through the floor down to the living room, itching to escape the guilt and all the teenagers, so loud and lively and making him feel more invisible than usual. He almost misses Privet Drive—but no. Harry’s happy here. Sirius mustn’t be selfish. 

He’s distracted from his maudlin thoughts by a distinctive meow, and looks down to see Crookshanks staring up at him, blinking his large, lamplike yellow eyes up at him. 

“Hello,” Sirius murmurs, squatting across from him, “You can see me too, can’t you? Clever thing.”

Crookshanks purrs loud as the engine of Sirius' bike, and Sirius smiles. “I don’t suppose you can help me get their attention?”

Crookshanks lashes his crooked tail twice, which always seemed to mean ‘I’ll try’ back when Sirius had been haunting the Hogwarts grounds. 

“Thank you.” He reaches out, pets the air around Crookshanks’ furry head, and then straightens. He can hear the lot upstairs moving about, can hear Fleur chattering in the kitchen and Molly cooking and Ginny helping, no doubt with utmost teenage surliness. 

Sirius could close his eyes and pretend, just for a minute, that nothing at all has changed and it’s Christmas again and he isn’t alone.

Of course, it’s not a very good pretence—there’s no smell of mildew and despair mingling with the smell of a Christmas feast no mysterious rustling from dark rooms, no muttering Kreacher, no dim, dusty light struggling to pierce Grimmauld Place’s heavy drapes. 

The Burrow is too cheerfully bright, and smells too well of bread and cinnamon and sunlight and wool.

.

.

.

Harry remains within the confines of the Burrow’s garden over the next few weeks. He spends most of his days playing two-a-side Quidditch in the Weasleys’ orchard (he and Hermione against Ron and Ginny; Hermione is dreadful and Ginny good, so they're reasonably well matched) and his evenings eating triple helpings of everything Mrs. Weasley puts in front of him.* With nothing better to do except watch in vain as Crookshanks tries to point everyone’s attention Sirius’ way and gets ignored or petted for his troubles, Sirius does little more than shadow the younger ones. He doesn’t mind too much—he hasn’t been outdoors so often in such comfortable circumstances in a very long time. 

Perhaps not since before Azkaban…

It could have been a happy, peaceful holiday had it not been for the stories of disappearances, odd accidents, even of deaths now appearing almost daily in the Prophet. Sometimes Bill and Mr. Weasley bring home news before it even reaches the paper. To Mrs. Weasley’s displeasure—but Sirius’ complicated joy—Harry’s sixteenth birthday celebrations are marred by grisly tidings brought to the party by Remus, who is looking gaunt and grim and much older than his years, his brown hair streaked liberally with grey, his clothes more ragged and patched than ever.*

Sirius aches just looking at him. He'd promised never to let Remus suffer another moon on his own as long as he lived, and he’d managed it for a little while. Grimmauld Place had a cellar perfect for confining a werewolf, and Padfoot and the wolf had spent many nights in comparative comfort in its depths. And now here Moony is again, alone and suffering but making the best of it, as he always does.

He can't see Sirius. Sirius had been hoping, praying really, that Remus could sense him at the very least. The werewolf makes him, at least a little bit, a magical creature, much as Sirius feels traitorous for the thought. But Remus doesn't react to him at all, not to his voice or his presence or Sirius' touch to his arm, his chest. It hurts like nothing else really has for Remus to be so unreachable to him. Sirius pays only half a mind to the depressing conversation around him, absorbed in watching Remus eat, cataloguing the lines around Remus' mouth and in the corners of his eyes, in the stiff way he moves his joints, his purposeful, precise bites, as though restraining himself from wolfing the food down.

Remus leaves all too soon, with barely a word to Harry, which baffles them both, if the flickering look in Harry’s eyes quickly hidden are anything to go by. Sirius had talked to Remus about making strides with Harry, reaching out to him. Harry is desperate for information on his parents, anyone with eyes can see that, but Remus…Remus had claimed that he didn’t want to intrude on Sirius’ bond with Harry, and that if Harry wants him he's there but otherwise...

Load of tosh that is—Remus had been feeling some way about being a werewolf, blamed himself for not believing in Sirius’ innocence and—as he’d once drunkenly, bitterly admitted—depriving both Sirius and Harry of the family and semblance of a happy life they might have had. 

Sirius had told him that was utter nonsense, that Harry didn’t think any less of him for his affliction, that Remus deserved his own bond with Harry, and that they’d both been idiots about who the spy in the Order had been. He’d tried likewise to explain what Harry was like—how rarely he asked for things, how little he demanded of anyone around him—but Remus hadn’t seen, or been willing to see, what Sirius had been talking about. Sirius, for his part, hadn’t been able to explain himself as well as he wishes he had been. It was something, he thinks now, that came of living with people like the people who had raised them; for Sirius, his parents, and for Harry, the Dursleys.

After this summer, he understands better than ever the way he and Harry are similar.

One bright spot that summer with the Weasleys is Harry becoming Gryffindor Quidditch captain. Sirius whoops along with the rest of them, delighting in Harry’s quietly happy smile. The other bright spot is the trip to Diagon Alley.

.

.

.

It's an overcast, murky day. One of the special Ministry of Magic cars is awaiting them in the front yard when they emerge from the house, everyone bar Sirius pulling on their cloaks.* Sirius is grateful—no Apparition or flooing means no long, pain-in-the-arse lone trek to Diagon. Sirius can instead phase through the car and settle among the trunks (he doesn’t feel comfortable sitting in someone else). 

Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes is the Marauder’s every dream made real. Sirius gapes, standing in the middle of the shop, mindless for once of those who walk through him. This is—Merlin, it’s bloody _brilliant._ Completely mad, completely wonderful, everything a prankster could ever want or need on shelves, in bins, hanging from the ceiling, floating along the walls, stacked in neat piles on the floors, just _begging_ to be used and let loose to wreak merry havoc. 

After the unwelcome look of Diagon Alley like the way it was before, when Voldemort first rose to power and turned everything dreary and stinking of fear and misery, the shop is a welcome shock to his non-corporeal system. Remus would love it here. _James_ would’ve loved it here, and Lily would have been in ecstatics about the wicked charms and potions—especially the daydream charms, _Merlin_ , Sirius knew the Weasley twins were clever, but he’d had no idea exactly how much.

He wishes now he’d talked to them more besides giving them carte blanch on whatever damage they wanted to do on Grimmauld Place. He loses track of Harry at some point, entranced in watching the milling customers play with all the things he can’t, mouth aching from a smile he can’t restrain. God, but it’s been ages since he’s felt the itch for mischief. It’s all extraordinary, and dead useful to boot, Sirius realizes, when he floats into the back room and finds Shield Hats, Instant Darkness Powder, and Decoy Detonators. Moody would kill for all of it for his ‘dunderheaded troops that like to call themselves Aurors’. He wanders back out after perusing the shelves, impressed to such a profound degree he can’t help the laugh bubbling out of him—and just catches Hermione’s bushy hair disappearing under what must be the invisibility cloak.

Sirius knows that cloak, used it as often as James, as often as Harry, and there’s no other invisibility cloak in the world that compares, he’s sure. It’s why he’s taken aback by the shimmering outlining the cloak gives the trio and hastens after them, sure they’re up to no good (not that he disapproves, necessarily, but _someone_ should watch over them, even if he is worse than useless). 

They’re following someone, but who isn’t apparent until they head into Knockturn Alley and *draw level with Borgin and Burkes. There in the midst of the cases full of skulls and old bottles stands Draco Malfoy with his back to the window, just visible beyond a very large black cabinet. Judging by the movements of Malfoy’s hands, he's talking animatedly. The proprietor of the shop, Mr. Borgin, an oily-haired, stooping man, stands facing Malfoy. He's wearing an expression of mingled resentment and fear usually seen on the faces of those forced to work with Malfoy Sr.

“If only we could hear what they’re saying!” says the invisible Hermione.

“We can!” says Ron excitedly, and Sirius hears several things fall and a muttered curse, and then, “Extendable Ears, look!”

“Fantastic!” says Hermione. “Oh, I hope the door isn’t Imperturbable —”

“No!” says Ron gleefully. “Listen!”

Being unrestrained by such things as visibility and solidity, Sirius walks through the wall, the better to hear the exchange. 

“. . . you know how to fix it?”

“Possibly,” says Borgin, in a tone that suggests he's unwilling to commit himself. “I’ll need to see it, though. Why don’t you bring it into the shop?”

“I can’t,” says Malfoy. “It’s got to stay put. I just need you to tell me how to do it.”

Sirius sees Borgin lick his lips nervously.

“Well, without seeing it, I must say it will be a very difficult job, perhaps impossible. I couldn’t guarantee anything.”

“No?” says Malfoy, sneering. “Perhaps this will make you more confident.”*

He moved toward Borgin and tugs back the sleeve of his robes. There, branded into the fair skin of his forearm, is the Dark Mark, livid and foul and ugly. Sirius stares, disgust and dismay roiling in his gut. Malfoy’s only a kid, but so was Regulus, once upon a time, and look who their parents were, look how Reg turned out. 

Borgin just looks very frightened.

“Tell anyone,” says Malfoy, after a moment, “and there will be retribution. You know Fenrir Greyback? He’s a family friend. He’ll be dropping in from time to time to make sure you’re giving the problem your full attention.”

“There will be no need for —”

“I’ll decide that,” says Malfoy, full of the cocksure arrogance of youth and power and money. “Well, I’d better be off. And don’t forget to keep that one safe, I’ll need it.”

“Perhaps you’d like to take it now?”

“No, of course I wouldn’t, you stupid little man, how would I look carrying that down the street? Just don’t sell it.”

“Of course not . . . sir.”

Borgin makes a bow as deep as one befitting a patron of the likes of Lucius Malfoy, which is overkill for his ferret of a son, in Sirius’ opinion.

“Not a word to anyone, Borgin, and that includes my mother, understand?”

“Naturally, naturally,” murmurs Borgin, bowing again.

Next moment, the bell over the door tinkles loudly as Malfoy stalks out of the shop looking very pleased with himself.* Sirius stands for a moment where he is, clenching and unclenching his fists, staring at his reflection in a large, tarnished mirror hanging in a case beside Borgin’s counter, feeling helpless and ill and angry. 

And then his mind catches up to his senses, and Sirius chokes on air. His _reflection._

He stares at himself, looking exactly the same as ever, thin and gaunt and dark-eyed, the mark of Azkaban on his once handsome features. It's as colourless as everything in Sirius' vision, but undeniably _his image._

He sees a shimmer behind his reflection, through the window, and then Harry’s head pops into visibility, eyes wide and devastated and full of bright, painful, hopeful, disbelief. 

_“Sirius?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MWAHAHAHAAHA


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update i had a really bad week that took a week to recover from lol

Harry bursts into the shop, badly startling Borgin. Sirius glimpses Ron and Hermione’s outstretched hands for half a moment from beneath the upturned edge of the Cloak, reaching to pull him back, but they’re too late.

“Ah— _Mr Potter?_ ” Borgin exclaims incredulously, and then rallies and says, with a simpering smile. “Welcome, _welcome_. How may I help you?”

Harry isn’t looking at him, his gaze fixed on Sirius' reflection. Sirius waves and grins at his godson, though the grin comes off as shaky and shocky as he feels. 

“How much is that mirror?” Harry asks, apropos of a greeting.

“The—the mirror?” Borgin glances at it nervously, gaze fixing on Sirius long enough to make his eyes widen, and then he says. “Er, Mr. Potter, perhaps you would be interested in—"

“No,” says Harry loudly, just as the door bursts open again and Ron and Hermione hurry in, Hermione looking determined and Ron looking nervous. “I want that mirror. How much is it?”

“I—well—" begins Borgin, but Hermione interjects.

_“Harry!_ No, I’m sorry, he doesn’t want the mirror, Harry, let’s go—”

“Yeah, we should—er—head back, Mum’ll be going spare.” Ron gives Borgin a suspicious look and half-turns back to the door.

Harry whirls on his friends, eyes blazing. “Look,” he hisses, pointing at the mirror, his whole arm trembling, “Look at that and tell me you don’t see him.”

Hermione and Ron glance nervously at the mirror, and Sirius waves with a grimace, even as Borgin shifts uneasily. Hermione and Ron both blanche.

“Harry,” says Hermione pleadingly, looking away. “Harry, it’s a cursed mirror, everything in this shop is cursed, it's a _Dark artefacts shop in Knockturn Alley.”_

“Now see here!” says Borgin, but he’s doomed to interruption as Harry does just that.

“Is it?” he asks fiercely, “Is the mirror cursed?”

“Er, it…” Borgin seems to deflate, scowls as he sees—or thinks he sees—the opportunity for a sale slipping away. “All it ever did was remain blank, no matter who stood before it. It showed no living creatures' reflection, only objects. The previous owners claimed they heard voices from it. I have _no_ idea why it is showing…Black.”

“See!” says Hermione, and lays a hand gently on Harry’s arm. “Harry, I know you want to see him, I know you miss him. Which is exactly why it’s so suspicious...”

“She’s right mate,” says Ron quietly, “Do you remember—“ His voice drops, and all Sirius manages to catch is “Erised”, whatever that means.

“It’s not the same,” says Harry, chin jutting, his eyes cutting back to Sirius, who mouths, slowly and carefully as he can, ‘I’m here, I’m not dead.’ “It’s not the same, it’s—it’s him. Somehow. He never—there was never a body.” Turning back to Borgin as Hermione frowns aggressively and shoots Ron a panicked look, he says again, “How much for the mirror?”

Hermione and Ron do their utmost, but in the end, a dubious Borgin packages the mirror up for Harry and parts with it for twenty galleons. Hermione makes a noise like an outraged cat at the price and at the mirror both, while Ron looks vaguely ill and twitchy and ready to bolt from the shop. 

“Are you mad?” he hisses as soon as they leave. Sirius follows, gleeful hope filling him to the brim. “How’re we going to smuggle that home? And how do we know that there isn’t some other curse on it? You think Borgin wouldn’t leap at the chance to off you, Harry?”

“I don’t care,” says Harry, “I saw Sirius—and it’s him, it _must_ be, he looks just the same, and there was never a body. And Borgin said the old owners heard voices coming from it, just like with the Veil.”

“Harry—“ Hermione begins, but Harry shakes his head, his face set in an expression eerily reminiscent of Lily at her most stubborn and immoveable. “No. Listen, we can do—we can do whatever tests, we can show Dumbledore, we can show—I dunno—Moody if it’ll make you feel better. But I need the mirror. I _need_ it.”

Hermione hesitates for a long time, but sighs as they leave Knockturn behind them and make for the one bright spot in Diagon Alley. “Alright,” she says, apparently mollified by Harry’s promise to bring an adult wizard into the picture. “But Harry, if it’s not—“

“Then nothing will have changed,” says Harry, hefting the mirror into a better position in his arms, “And I’ll be fine.”

Hermione and Ron trade looks behind his back that beg to differ.

.

.

.

Harry manages to pass off the packaged mirror as a gift, and Molly, concerned mostly by their disappearance and how likely Fred and George are to be murdered for their ridicule of You-Know-Who, accepts this at face value and ushers them as quickly as possible back into the Ministry cars, and back to the Burrow. 

The trio—and Sirius—spend the entirety of that last week testing the mirror. Or, to be more accurate, Hermione spends the entirety of the last week researching and testing the mirror, which proves to be curse and jinx free, untouched by any harmful potions, and unmarred by any runes except something that takes her a full day to translate with the help of her new copy of _Advanced Rune Translation._ It turns out to be just say ‘Looking Glass’ in Gobbledegook, which Hermione says means the mirror was probably crafted by a goblin. Sirius isn’t surprised. This seems precisely like Goblin magic, a mix of metal-smithing and imbedded spell-work, and has a similar style to a few Goblin-made things his Dad had owned. 

Harry remains convinced, rightly, that the mirror isn’t deceiving them all. Hermione insists he keep an open mind, and Ron seems torn—hesitant to believe in the mirror’s image, but hopeful for his friend. “My dad always said never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain,” he cautions, a couple days before they’re due to return to Hogwarts. 

“Yeah, I remember,” says Harry, “But it’s not really thinking for itself, is it? I mean, it’s just showing me Sirius. Who looks like he’s trying to talk to us. Like he can hear us.” At Ron’s dubious look, he adds, “Alright, fine, something that looks like Sirius is doing all that.”

Somewhat surprisingly, all three decide against involving an adult immediately. Harry, for fear that he won’t be listened to, Ron for fear of what his mother will say, and Hermione because she wants to take this to the highest authority first—Dumbledore. Sirius can’t fault any of them their logic. He does spend several impatient, eternal days appearing in the mirror and trying to communicate with them—but none of them are very good at lipreading. 

Crookshanks joins them in their study of the mirror the night before September 1st. Only Ron is idly watching the cat. Harry is watching Sirius’ reflection, the mirror propped up against the bed and set on the floor, and Hermione has curled almost her entirely over a book entitled  _Magic Mirrors and Malevolence._ Crookshanks meows up at Sirius, and Sirius does what he always does. He reaches down, and pets the air around Crookshanks, who purrs and slits his eyes closed.

“Blimey!” Ron exclaims, and everyone, even Crookshanks, looks 'round at him.

“Ron?”

“It’s—Hermione, your cat! He went up to where Sirius is—where Sirius would be standing! Right there! And Sirius—the reflection—bent down and pet him! And he _purred_.”

The expression on Harry’s face is that of Christmas come early and tickets to the Quidditch Cup all rolled into one. Hermione’s eyes go very wide and then narrow thoughtfully, as Ron lets out a shocked laugh.

“I knew it,” Harry says triumphantly.

“Oh you clever thing,” Sirius rasps down at Crookshanks.

Crookshanks lifts his ugly head high in pride, and purrs so loudly he seems to vibrate. 


End file.
